6th Grade Update
Social Studies
According to 6th grade social studies standards, “students will focus on geography, history, and culture in global regions. Students will analyze regional, physical, and cultural characteristics of places. The analysis will show how these factors influenced people who lived there and how the people and characteristics have changed over time.”
This year, 6th grade was fortunate enough to adopt a new curriculum! All students now have online access to our curriculum, Teacher’s Curriculum Institute, or TCI. TCI has been a great resource for our students, providing a variety of activities that allow students to learn material.
So far this year, students have learned about the earliest humans and the ancient civilizations of Mesopotamia, Egypt, and—most recently—India. As always, students begin by learning the geography of the region to determine the geographical features that led to settlement in the area. Students have found many connections from ancient history to our present world!
When learning new concepts and ideas, students have utilized a variety of activities and strategies. Our students build their comprehension and understanding through class participation and discussions. Students demonstrate their learning through hands-on activities or short quizzes throughout the unit, rather than a formal end-of-unit assessment. After students finish studying India, we plan to uncover the ancient cultures of China, Greece, and Rome to end the school year.
As stated in previous communications, students may reference their daily class agendas for each of their courses in Google Classroom any time they are absent. Students also have access to PowerSchool to view their grades and missing assignments. Please do not hesitate to reach out to any teacher with questions.
Science
In science classes at Central Lee, we follow the Next Generation Science Standards, which improve student learning through Three-Dimensional Learning. This practice helps prepare students for real-world problems, as well as potential science and engineering careers.
In 6th grade science specifically, we started the school year by learning about life sciences and understanding cells, body systems, and reproduction and genetics. Students learned about Punnett squares and how they describe genetic variation. Currently, students are learning about physical science, with a current focus on chemical reactions. With our new curriculum, OpenSciEd, students are developing deeper thinking skills, engaging in hands-on learning, and focusing on collaborating like scientists to generate questions, explanations, and ideas.
OpenSciEd is currently being used at Central Lee High School, and our middle school has launched the curriculum as a trial this year. After our Physical Science unit, we will use this same curriculum to learn about Earth and Earth’s Systems.
In each unit, students engage in a lab or project to apply their knowledge of the content. Through this, we strive for students to understand how all science concepts, standards, and experiences are connected and apply this knowledge to their own lives.
Additionally, Science Fair competitions at Central Lee Middle School have begun! We recently held our Central Lee Science Fair and will participate in competitions with other schools over the next month. If your student is participating in any upcoming science fairs, please remind them to regularly check their Google Classroom page for updates and bring home notes from sponsors. Any 6th grade students that have questions, concerns, or need guidance may email me or any of the other sponsors.
Math
Our math curriculum, Illustrative Mathematics, allows students to learn about math concepts in depth, rather than simply memorizing rules or math facts. Illustrative Mathematics is built around hands-on activities, real-world examples, and peer collaboration. Every lesson includes a warm-up activity, individual activities, group activities, and a cool-down activity.
The cool-down activity is usually a short homework assignment that allows me to determine students' understanding. During collaborative activities, students are expected to explain what they did to solve a problem while using their mathematical language and vocabulary. In our curriculum, it is important for students to understand the process behind a problem, not just the solution.
Currently, students are finishing up Unit 5, focused on decimals. Students have reviewed how to add and subtract decimals, and they have extended that knowledge by learning how to multiply and divide decimals.
As a reminder, students are provided with a math workbook that allows them to easily stay organized. Please note that students are expected to bring their workbook to class every day and complete the lesson within this book. Our workbook also includes practice problems that students can use for extra practice or to study for upcoming tests or quizzes.
Reading/Language Arts
In reading, students continue to dig deeper into text and expand their horizons by studying a wide variety of fiction and non-fiction texts. Our curriculum consists of many resources that are aligned with Iowa Standards, including the iReady teacher toolbox, CommonLit, Newsela, and classroom novels. Through these resources, students have developed skills such as determining central ideas, producing unbiased summaries, determining the meaning of interesting or new words, identifying story elements, citing text evidence, analyzing text structure, and more!
In ELA, students are learning about different genres of writing. Students complete daily quick-writes, where they write using a video prompt or a list they have brainstormed previously. In each unit of writing, we focus on mastering a specific grade-level skill, ranging from dialogue to punctuation, plot development, writing process, gathering information from multiple resources, to properly citing resources. Our goal is for students to develop their independence through making decisions about their own writing, as well as confidence in generating writing ideas.
Currently, students are preparing for an upcoming reading competition, Battle of the Books! Each student will participate with their chosen team later this spring. Individual members of each team are responsible for reading three or more books from the assigned list of books. The competition consists of a written and an oral round, where teams must correctly answer questions about the books. The two winning teams of the building competition will have the opportunity to move on to compete at a regional competition. Students have been working hard to prepare and are excited for the Battle!